


Ground Control

by Zivicio



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-29
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-11-21 04:06:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11349534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zivicio/pseuds/Zivicio
Summary: A take on what could have been Lena's experience with the Slipstream.





	Ground Control

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Ground Control by All Time Low, which you can listen to here:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-_YAaRFnl8

_Ground control_  
_What do the books say about this one?_

At first things flash by like blinking, though she's never closing her eyes. From the little that she's been able to piece together something went very wrong with the Slipstream; it was red emergency lights and alarms and panic, frantically pawing at the dashboard, her General yelling in her ear - she doesn't know where all she's been since that. She doesn't know how long it's been either. She'll show up somewhere, and have just enough time to take it in before she's somewhere else, never even able to scream. Each time she reappears it's like some part of her mind was wiped and she's discovering her condition all over again. She doesn't know what she is, how she feels - there's a pressure in every part of her being, not painful but with the message that something is horribly, horribly wrong. (Winston would later tell her it was most likely the feeling of being scattered across time and space, and she doesn't quite know how to feel about that.)

_Now I think we've lost it all_  
_There's nothing to explain the distances anymore_

This goes on for some time, and it's torturous, as each time she realizes just a little bit sooner, remembers just a little bit more. Eventually she's able to begin to focus on keeping her consciousness between jumps. It's difficult, but after all, all she has is time; she gets the hang of it, at least as much as she thinks she can.

With her newfound conciousness the jumps become less disorienting, though a new problem rouses: she begins to remember, to think, to question. She experiences moments of her life and moments she's never lived, and moments she's never even been part of the universe of. Some of them aren't bad - but others take her back to the omnic crisis, the Uprising in London, her first kill, witnessing her comrades and friends dying. She sees friends and lovers and family and the mother she hasn't seen in years and never got to say goodbye to, but she can do nothing, she can say nothing, for she is nothing.

_All systems are critical_  
_Can't find my way back to you_

She begins to think about home. Is she dead? Does Overwatch know where she is? Are they looking for her? She hasn't shown up there yet - she doesn't know if she's even shown up in her own reality yet. If she does, she doesn't know if she'll even be able to get help. She has the fleeting thought that she might never see her loved ones again and she quickly resolves to think of anything but that. She forces herself to do what she's been doing for so long, what she's great at - staying positive - because if she thinks she'll never get back home then she's already lost.

_Feels like there's nowhere to go_

The first glimpse of salvation comes to her in the form of an angel. They've never actually met before, but anyone who hasn't been living under a rock could recognize the blonde hair and blue eyes that belong to none other than Doctor Angela Ziegler. Lena Oxton appears in her office with a warbly static, and the doctor makes eye contact with her translucent form that chokes out a strangled "D̸̵ơ͟͟͠c͘͢͞-" before she vanishes.

Doctor Ziegler stares at the empty spot in her office for a few seconds before she pulls up the room's security feed. She recognizes the girl from the news reports; Oxton shows up differently on the camera, but it's undeniably her, so Angela sends a copy of the footage to the scientist that headed the Slipstream project and tries to forget about it. (She spends the next week haunted by memories of warbled static and that ghostly translucent blue.) Angela's asked a few questions about what she saw and doesn't hear of it again until a few days later when the news spreads around base that the Slipstream Project is being reopened, with Overwatch's prestigious Doctor Winston joining the project. She was never particularly interested in it before, but now she finds that she's keeping up to date with the reports the scientists submit.

\--

After seeing Dr. Ziegler, Lena wants to cry and fall to her knees and scream all at once. She devotes every bit of energy she has to going back there, because that's the closest she's gotten to home since she's begun to remember her jumps; in the midst of the void she holds onto that moment like a lifeline, like it's the most precious thing she's ever seen. The fine tuning is difficult - it's a bit like finding a radio frequency but the more time passes the more you forget what the frequency even is - but she'll be damned if she doesn't try.

_I'm just out here waiting for you to say_

Two weeks pass from Lena's first reappearance until she shows up again, this time at the end of the corridor one exhausted Dr. Ziegler is walking down. The warbled static makes her jump and spill her coffee, and her head snaps up to see that same ghost girl staring back at her.

At first she looks lost, scared, and a little disbelieving - then her image flickers and her face is flooded with relief. She reaches out and goes to take a step, and teleports five feet forward.

"-o̵c̶͠ţ̵̨̨͢  - e̷̴̛͟i̢͜͝g̷͏̴  - l̵͘e̴̴̡  - !̦̗͠"

She says something as she moves, but it's still warbled and cut out. The entire ordeal lasts no more than five seconds before she's gone again.

Angela stands alone in a dark hallway with coffee covering her hand and dripping onto the floor, and she immediately looks upward to scan the area for a camera.

_\--_

Dr. Ziegler is integrated into the Slipstream project. They interview her again, and give her a private channel to alert them for when she sees Oxton again. She asks them why she's the one who keeps seeing her - they say that they don't know.

"We're just glad to see her."

At first she's a little miffed at the inconvenience  - she's a busy woman, damnit - but she'd rather Oxton be showing up to her than not showing up at all. This is far from the worst thing she's dealt with.

_Don't be afraid, no,_

Lena thinks that if she could take away the terrifying and emotionally draining parts of being scattered across time and space, it might actually be kind of cool. Inbetween devoting creepy amounts of her brain power to Doctor Ziegler, she's been places people can only dream of seeing. She's seen dinosaurs and ancient civilizations and planets in entirely different universes, so yeah, if it wasn't for the prospect of being trapped here, she might've enjoyed it.

With focusing so much on Doctor Ziegler, Lena begins to see bits of her that aren't  _her_  Doctor Ziegler from her time. She cherishes these anyway since they're still Ziegler, and they're still closer than nothing. However, an awful revelation comes when Lena realizes that in remembering all these bits about Ziegler she can't remember things from her own life.

_If you start floating away._

When amidst the chaos of her life Angela realizes that she hasn't seen Oxton in three weeks, a seed of worry is planted in her. What was originally annoyance toward the situation has turned into compassion - after all, she became a doctor because she wants to help people - and she keeps thinking of the look on Oxton's face, and she wants to help this young woman but she's never felt so helpless. She hates it; devoting so much of her life to medicine was supposed to prevent her from ever feeling like this again, yet here she is, getting progressively more angry at the situation the more she thinks about it. She has a hard time sleeping anyway but now her nightmares are plagued with Oxton, and she sees her out of the corners of her eyes, and she hears that warbled static in things that it's not in.

Angela sets herself on getting back Lena Oxton if it's the last thing she does.

_Hey, I promise you will be fine_  
_Got the universe on your side_

Lena guesses it's due to seeing other forms of Dr. Ziegler that it takes so much longer (she thinks) for her to find  _her_  Ziegler again.

Angela's at her desk again, and this time when her head snaps up at the static she scrambles for a tablet beside her montior.

"Oxton-! Just, stay, please, please please," Dr. Ziegler begs, glancing up at the ghost while hurriedly tapping a few things on the tablet.

Lena's been practicing staying in one jump, so she is able to stay for a few seconds longer than the first time - she's so shocked at Dr. Ziegler's response that she has nothing to say this time, but when she's in the next jump and it finally processes that what she's doing is working, she's making some kind of progress, she breaks down.

To Angela it looks like Oxton shows up, stares at her in shock for a few seconds and then disappears - but she swears Oxton stayed around longer this time, and the Slipstream sicentists come into her office with machines that tick like geiger counters and they all celebrate when they're able to get a read on Oxton's presence.

Angela wishes she could do more, but this will have to be enough for now.

_When you're out in space_  
_Don't you be afraid, no_  
_If you start floating away._

In Lena's shock and subsequential breakdown, she loses some of her hold on Dr. Ziegler's frequency, as she's come to call it. It sets her back substantially and she's upset with herself, but at least now that she knows she's moving forward she's able to come back with twice her previous determination.

Joking about her apparent obsession with Doctor Ziegler would be a lot funnier if it wasn't such a grim circumstance.

_Checking in_  
_Three hundred days with no reply, now,_

By the time it's been two months since Oxton's last appearance, Angela knows it's taking much heavier a toll on her than it should be. The bags under her eyes are so bad it actually looks like she has two black eyes, and her work production has decreased enough for her supervisors to send her messages about it. She's high enough up the chain of command that it's not that big of an issue as to be grounds for a demotion, but it's worrying - besides, she still has people counting on her. Luckily she has yet to go out in the field in this state, but what if she does?

She's looked over the Slipstream files so many times there are copies perpetually open on her every tablet and computer. The physics and quantum mechanics Dr. Winston is using have always been above her head, but she reads the reports anyway, since she didn't get this far without being willing to learn. She asks the scientists all sorts of questions and she's pretty sure they're all annoyed with her by now, but at this point she could care less what they think. She's fairly certain that she's more invested in the case than most of the Slipstream's team anyway.

_I think I've lost my mind_  
_There's nothing keeping me from going outside anymore_

Part of Lena wonders what her life will be like if she ever gets out of the void. Will she remember her time in it? Will she remember anything from her previous life at all? If she didn't would she ever get it back?

She decides to focus on getting out first.

_My systems are critical_  
_Gotta find my way back to you_

When Lena begins to experience jumps to Doctor Ziegler once more it's so relieving she almost cries again, even if she hasn't found her Ziegler yet. She's never been happier to see someone in her life. She thinks that she's never had so much emotion attached to one person before either.

Come to think of it, it almost doesn't make sense. Why is Dr. Ziegler her link back to her reality? They've never even met in person - Lena determines that Ziegler seeing her ghost doesn't count - so why is it her? Why isn't it someone she has actual ties to?

Then again, she can't explain how she got scattered across space-time, so maybe this is something she can't explain either.

All she knows is that she'd kill to see Angela again.

_Feels like I'm drifting alone_

Angela struggles with the fact that no one really understands her predicament; though maybe it's that no one really cares the way that she's come to. Winston seems to be the only one who's as dedicated to rescuing Lena as she is - it's just a job to everyone else, and that only becomes more prominent as time passes.

Winston seems to appreciate her dedication, even if she doesn't know as much as the other Slipstream scientists. He meets with her sometimes about it, saying that it's good to get an outside view, and while Angela can respect that, they both know that it's also in part because of the investment they share. She knows that he's working himself to unhealthy points, and she would chastise him about it if she knew she wasn't doing the same.

At three months since Lena's last appearance - that's how she measures time now - Angela realizes she doesn't know when "Oxton" became "Lena."

_I'm just out here wishing that you would say_  
_Don't be afraid, no_  
_If you start floating away._

Angela continuously wishes she could do more - and since she's never been one to sit back and just wish something, she tries to do more. She devotes more of her time to her studies, passes off more work to her colleagues and underlings. Rumors fly but she doesn't have the energy to care about them, let alone address them. Let them talk. She's content as long as she's doing something.

She has a whiteboard on the wall in her office that says "Lena Oxton has been missing for 193 days," and while she could use a holoprojection she finds it's a lot more motivating when she has to change the number every day.

_Hey, I promise you will be fine_  
_Got the universe on your side_

Lena finally comes back at four and a half months since her last appearance. Angela alerts the Slipstream scientists in no more than three seconds before she vaults over a table to get to Lena, who then flickers and teleports another ten meters away.

"A̷̕n͡-̕͘g̵ȩl̵̢a̸̵̕ ͘ -̡̛ b̧o̢͡͠y͏̡̧ ͏̧͢a̢m ̨I̶͏̧- ̨a̧pp̴͢y͏ t̡o͝  ̵̵s̡-e̡͠e̴̶-̨͡ ͏yo͢u,̨̛" Lena says, unbothered by the movement.

"Lena I need you to stay as long as you can, Winston and his team are on their way," Angela responds, taking a step forward and reaching a hand out a few inches.

"o͘r̶̡ki̸͜n̛ ̡̢o̸ ̸̧-̧͞ ̵a̵͠t̶͟," Lena replies before flickering and disappearing. Angela panickedly spins on her heel.

"Lena?!"

"S̵͢t̸͞ ̴̧l͡͏͝l̷̕ ͝- ̵e͝r̨͝e͠ l͜͡o̷̕ ̧v̡͡," Lena says, reappearing to Angela's right. The door bursts open and a huge black mass hurtles through, followed by a few of the human Slipstream scientists teeming with equipment.

"Lena? Can you hear me?" Winston asks, moving toward her.

The voices and bustle of the team fade into a background lull - Angela is stuck in her spot as she watches people work around her. Her gaze is stuck on Lena. Angela knows that Winston doesn't have any way to retrieve Lena yet, and it gnaws at her: so close yet so far, Lena just slipping through their fingers.

It can't happen again. It won't.

_When you're out in space_  
_Don't be afraid, no_  
_If you start floating away._

If it wasn't so awful, it would be almost funny how time can work against Lena in two ways at once. She's in the void, reaching, trying to break through, and trying to  _stay-_

"Just hold on Lena, the chronal field's almost there," Winston says calmly in the midst of the chaos. This is what he's worked on for so long -  _why didn't he make it faster?_  - and everything's finally coming together, the pieces are falling into place; they would be, if Lena wasn't being dragged kicking and screaming back into the ether every time she tried to get out.

_We've gotta make contact to make it out_  
_We've gotta make contact to make it_

She's reaching out, gasping for air she can't breathe, her knees in a perpetual state of giving out. She has to idea when Dr. Ziegler appeared but she's jogging over, and Lena's outstretched arm extends fully to her, to her lifeline.

"A̢n͝g̵̨͘ ̸ -̕ ̷̡͞ ̢I͢ ̸c̢ą̵̶n͝-" Lena chokes out, and somehow Dr. Ziegler hears her.

"You can, you can,  _please_  Lena," Angela responds as she's only ten feet away and she's reaching out too, reaching, reaching - there's a single moment where the world stills when their fingertips meet.

Angela knows scientifically that Lena has no physical form, but she swears that she felt cold when the tips of her fingers passed through Lena's.

And then she's gone.

_We've gotta make contact to make it out..._

It's one of those moments the universe stills to watch, one it's been waiting for. Lena Oxton disappears from existence - and then she flickers back again, gasping and heaving, stumbling forward a few steps literally into Angela, and for the first time her image of translucency is stable.

Angela puts her hands up in reflex though Lena passes right through her - but then Lena takes a step back and straightens, her hand on her chest as their gazes meet, and they have mirror expressions of realization and amazement. Lena starts laughing in hysterical relief and ends up doubled over once again, while Angela turns around to face Winston who's watching with the rest of the Slipstream scientists in similar astonishment. He bounds over and takes Angela up in his arms, and he swings her around as they share a delighted hug (and then proceed to recompose their professional appearances and act like it didn't happen).

_If you start floating away_  
_Hey_  
_I promise you will be fine_

A scientist begins asking Lena all sorts of questions while the team gets to work on the chonal stabilizer field, making readings and adjustments. Lena answers the questions diligently, but her gaze keeps sneaking back to Dr. Ziegler, who's watching her with a smile on her face - and every time they make eye contact Angela smiles just a little brighter. Neither of them know what strange bond they've formed through this but they also don't have any problems with it.

_Got the universe on your side_

Lena kind of wants to apologize for dragging Dr. Ziegler into this - but every time she looks at her the rehearsed words die in her throat, and she feels a little guilty for not really being sorry at all, because with Angela's gaze on her she knows that she wouldn't rather it be anyone else.

_When you're out in space_

Angela clenches her hands around the edge of the table she's sitting on to push back her urge to go over there and hug the living daylights out of the young pilot sat across the room. (It's not like Lena has a corporeal form for her to hug anyway.) She's so relieved, and daresay happy, and she hasn't felt this much emotion this strongly in enough years that she can't remember.

_Don't you be afraid, no,_

They still have a long way to go - Lena's far from actually being in reality and the flow of time again - but now they have progress, they have a fighting chance and something to work off of. Angela can take down the whiteboard in her office because after so long Lena's finally been  _found_. There's no doubt in her mind now about the fact that Lena will return to her life again, altered though it may be - but she looks at the pilot and knows that she'll take it in stride, that she'll be fine.

No matter what, Angela's got her.

 _If you start floating away_.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Feel free to point out any typos or grammatical errors - I always look over what I write but I do miss things sometimes. Hit me up by dropping a comment or reaching out on tumblr @ zivicio.


End file.
